Introduction to 'An Awesome Book'

Taken from 'http://gweb-awesomebook.appspot.com/index.html'

My first thoughts about 'An Awesome Book' were nothing but positive and uplifting thoughts. The book has defiantly inspired me, even at the age of 15, despite the fact that it is a children bedtime story. The theme of the book is dreams, and the author 'Dallas Clayton' defiantly did a good job of delivering this theme. From the very first page I was transported to the land of Dreams and welcomed be flying unicorns, tiny trumpet players and many more amazing characters. Since listening to the book in class I have re-watched the online audio version several times more times. Each time it gives me chills as it reminds me that as life goes on we are all taught to evolve and to forget and dismiss. We as humans learn with age that Santa Claus does not exist, that the Easter Bunny was simply a myth, that Barbie dolls cannot talk and that any dreams of one day becoming a top secret spy will never happen. The book on the other hand tells us that this can happen. That everything you believe can happen and possibly will. 

I think that the book has a lot of potential but needs to be discovered by many more people as I have never heard of it before. I feel like a lot of people need to read the book so that they can be inspired and can reinvest in dreams. Dreams can often leave people feeling disheartened in later life, this book shows the disheartened people how to give their lost dreams life again, whilst teaching young people to never allow their dreams to escape them.

In today's lesson we had to create a short scene for little children, which was inspired by a page of the book. My group chose the page 'Please dream for those who've given up'. Our group couldn't really come up with anything because it was almost as if the book was so inspiring that it couldn't be broken down into any other form then the simple words that the author used. Then with little time left to put something together, I had an amazing idea. I thought about how Adults are very corrupt, have already given up on a lot of things in their lives and have probably already let go of their dreams. Compared to a very young child/baby that's still innocent and hasn't yet evolved into someone who has given into society's evil ways and buried their dreams deep down somewhere. The whole point I wanted to get across, was the fact that society had somehow taught us 'to grow up' and leave behind our childish wits, replacing them with our robot selves. About how we were all made to become robots and fit in, instead of seeking an adventure that might work out. It was the fact that a lot of children have been taught to give up before they have even had the chance to believe and actually dream.

The only problem with this interpretation was the fact that little children would not be able to understand the meaning we would be trying to get across, and could loose interest in the performance quickly. So we used my idea as a stimulus and worked on breaking it down. We used a group of adults that had already given up on their dreams to enter the stage as robots but then come to life when they reminisced about their childhood dreams, and simultaneously became whatever they wanted to be. Then they returned to their normal boring robot selves, leaving a little baby on stage, with his whole life ahead of him.

'An Awesome Book' has been chosen for 'Little People's Day' because anyone can relate to the book and so it will be very appealing for the young audience. For many of the young audience members, it will be the first piece of theater which they have ever seen. If we as a cast can capture the magical side of dreams, we may be able to inspire the young children to become actors or something else that they see on stage. Hopefully we will motivate them to be creative and let their imagination run free. After all the children are children. They deserve to dream and escape the world in a blink of an eye. They deserve much more then to be trapped in one place, with just humans. How boring would that be?

An Awesome Book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOKGVWNfJU4

Source taken from Youtube

Taken from 'http://goodtimes.thechurchoflondon.com/articles/culture/dallas-clayton-awesome-world-kids/'